Mumbai

28th Jun 2010

Signed up for the slum tour (Dharavi slum), the biggest slum in Mumbai and also Asia. The Dharavi Slum covers a land area of 1.75km square but houses 1million people so its pretty much like 570 people living in a 1 metre by metre square area. If you still don’t know what it mean so far, let’s just put it such that the place we were visiting was where The Slumdog Millionaire was filmed.

The tour includes a visit to the Dhobi Ghat, where most of all the laundry service in Mumbai is sent here for washing. The whole entire hamlet is Mumbai’s oldest and biggest human-powered washing machine and what the people does is beating the dirt out of thousands of kilograms of soiled Mumbai’s clothes and linens and I do mean beating. Literally beating. Quite a sight.

Our car enters a street which we couldn't remember, which most probably is pronounced as Nalmfdnaldfnlsnsdal which goes the same for all the other India street names. It’s a red light district and the guide began by telling us how most of the women are the victims of human trafficking which resulted in them being here, earning as little as 100rupees for one customer. You do the maths. It takes no genius or mathematician to derive that they are earning less than 10 bucks per customer they take on only. Sadly, it is a fact that is happening in many other places outside the small and sheltered life we are living in now.

Overall, India is a country plagued with extreme poverty, beggars and the homeless everywhere. You can find them anywhere and I mean literally anywhere. Sleeping on the cold and wet pavement and if its raining buffaloes and cows, its worse. When we arrived at the slum, its pretty heart breaking to see how unhygienic the place was but still, its home to more than one million people. A pity photography is prohibited and I can't show it here. One household is probably the size of your bathroom, take that man. But its pretty amazing how they are able to make the most outta what they have. Up close, life in the slums is amazingly normal. Residents of the slums units pay rent, most houses have a kitchen area and electricity, but still remembering that its only the size of your bathroom at home, minus the bathtub of cause if u have one.

Nightfall sees us at the Taj Hotel for some tea and desserts indulging session, it was actually quite nice and a pleasant surprise to find that the hotel was screening the Brazil-Chile match on a huge screen! Even though it is gonna bust our poor pockets, its still worth a visit as The Taj Hotel being the most prestigious hotel in India, was also the venue of the sad and unfortunate terrorist attack in 2008 where the Singaporean was killed. Some parts of it that was bombed off was still under reconstruction at the time of visit and security was pretty tight when we entered.

One last picture before leaving Mumbai!